Fra Angelico ca.

1395-1455

The Italian Renaissance (Rinascimento) describes a two-century long (appx. 1420-1550)

cultural movement that began in Florence. It is called a “renaissance” as it is understood as a kind of re-
birth where artists and intellectuals left the superstitions of the Middle Ages behind in favor of a more
scientific and humanist understanding of reality. In this era Italy had many large cities in general, but,
Florence was one of Europe’s biggest cities. Geographically, Italy is unique in that it is a peninsula and
largely rocky making it more adept for trade than farming. So then as capitalism was taking root in this
period many families in Italy became very wealthy and there was a sense of abundance in the air, as
Vasari notes:

The first was the fact that many people were extremely critical (because the air was conducive
to freedom of thought), and that men were not satisfied with mediocre works … Secondly, that
it was necessary to be industrious in order to live, which meant using one’s wits and judgement
all the time … for Florence did not have a large or fertile countryside round about it, so that
men could not live cheaply there as they could in other places. Thirdly … came the greed for
honour and glory which that air generates in men of every occupation.
(Vasari, The Lives of the Artists)

The Medici are the most well-known family from this time period with a definite “greed for honour and
glory” and were the patron of many artists, including the subject of this brief essay, Fra Angelico.

I decided to research Fra Angelico simply because his art interested me, especially his painting the Last
Judgement. He was born as Guido di Pietro, later known as Fra Angelico (il Beato Angelico), in
Rupecanina, Mugello in what was then known as the Republic of Florence (Repubblica Fiorentina)
around 1395 A.D. Not much is known about his early life although it is clear he began his lifelong
association with the church in October 1417 when he joins a religious guild, and shortly after, in 1418,
we find the first records of his career as a painter as reciepts for paintings in the church of Santo
Stefano del Ponte.

The personal life of of Fra Angelico is mysterious. He was known by many names, such as Fra
Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra Giovanni Angelico, Guido di Pietro. We know he was a dominican friar at the
convent San Domenico in Fiesole. He was incredibly devout and is said to have prayed everytime
before beginning his work.

Despite the fact that Fra Angelico exclusively painted religious imagery, there are many scholars who
see in the Florentine artist a representative of this humanist renaissance in which he lived and worked.
By others he is seen as a transitional figure—in between the Middle Ages and modernity—a dominican
friar who worked in the Florence of Cosme de Medici, of Masaccio, of Brunelleschi and of Donatello.
He was engaged with the latest advances of art and thought, but, still maintained his convictions in the
church, a church who had a long figurative and conceptual tradition to draw from.

His art is characterized by a desire to communicate the divine essence, and to evoke—by his use of
light and color—the sublimity of the prelapsiarian world. Although lighting and color is very important
to Fra Angelico—as it was to many artists in the Middle Ages—he also used the technique of
perspective, which is very representative of the renaissance. Then, in his art we find a tension between
modes of the past (religious piety, dominant spirituality) and the modes of his present (dignified
humanism, scientific naturalaism).
The most important point of his artistic career came in 1438 when he gained a commission from
Cosimo de Medici to fresco the refectory, chapter house, cloister, dormitory cells and corridors of a
recently renovated convent at San Marco. Here, Fra Angelico completed some of his most famous
paintings, was at the center of artistic activity in the region, and was under the patronage of the most
wealthy and powerful family of the time, the Medici. Some of the paintings he completed in this period
are The Virgin of the Annuciation (fig. a) and the San Marco Altarpiece (one of his most famous
works[fig. b]). In these paintings we can clearly see his use of perspective—a technique that has
become emblematic of paintings in the Renaissance.

Figure A The Virgin of the Annuciation

After his time, in 1445, at San Marco he was ordered to the Vatican by Pope Eugene IV in order to
paint the frescoes at the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at St. Peter’s. Fra Angelico would continue to
work in Rome until his death in 1449 when he returned to his old convenant in Fiesole to serve as Prior
til 1452. He died in Rome at a Dominican convent probably working on Pope Nicholas’ chapel, he was
entombed in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

Many centuries after his death he was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 3, 1982. The Pope
delivered these remarks about Fra Angelico: “Angelico was reported to say ‘He who does Christ's work
must stay with Christ always’. This motto earned him the epithet ‘Blessed Angelico’, because of the
perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted, to a superlative
extent those of the Blessed Virgin Mary” (Bunson).

His legacy to the art world has been significant. In fact some critics see his influence in the work of
Michelangelo. Michelanelo used similar arrangements of figures, and there are parallels with his use of
motion and gesture in his work. Today much of his work is located in the collections of very important
museums such as the Louvre, Uffizi, National Museum of San Marco, the Metropolitan Museum in
New York, etc.
Figure B San Marco Altarpiece
Bibliography:

Bunson, Matthew; Bunson, Margaret (1999). John Paul II's Book of Saints. Our Sunday Visitor.
p.  156.

Burke, Peter. The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy. Princeton University Press, 2014.

Regards sur la peinture No. 22 Fra Angelico Editions FABBRI

Vasari, Giorgio, and Neville Jason. The Lives of the Artists. Naxos, 2009.